Afghanistan

It was her eyes that caught Sedigh Barmak's attention. The 40-year-old
director of Osama, one of two Cannes entries about Afghanistan, needed
the right girl to play his lead. Barmak was seeking someone with whom
Afghans
could identify, someone who would
make his audience "feel confident about themselves, to prove to them
that they are human again." He combed Kabul's schools and orphanages in
vain. Then came a chance street encounter. A young girl in a tattered
salwar kameez approached him, begging for money. "Her eyes," says
Barmak, "were like...